


An Unexpected Guest

by transdimensional_void



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Drunkenness, Fluff, M/M, Strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5220632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transdimensional_void/pseuds/transdimensional_void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil's flat gets an unwanted and unexpected guest... (Or, Dan and Phil are neighbors, and Dan drunkenly stumbles into the wrong flat one night)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unexpected Guest

It was two minutes past 8:00 PM, there were three tequila shots lined up on the bar, and Dan had at least four good reasons for wanting to be drunk right now:

 

  1. Work
  2. His toilet
  3. It was Thursday
  4. Work, which he wasn’t going to the next day, even though he usually worked on Fridays, because his boss had just fucking fired him.



 

Shooting liquor straight, while brutal, seemed to be the most efficient way to get absolutely shit-faced in the least amount of time, so he grabbed the first shot, ran his tongue across the salt on the back of his hand, downed the liquor in one go, and finished up with a bitter bite of lime. The next one soon followed and then the third, and he motioned to the bartender to bring over another set.

 

“Maybe you should let the first three settle first,” she suggested, eyeing him from the top of a very long nose.

 

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled and watched in dejection as she cleared away the empty shot glasses and spent limes. It fucking figured. He couldn’t even do irresponsibility right.

 

If his — former — boss was to be believed, he couldn’t do _anything_ right, but even Dan thought that was a bit too harsh. He was decent at his job most days. At least, on the days when he actually felt like putting effort into it. Granted, that wasn’t very often. All right, he could probably concede that he was in fact pretty shit at his job, but then again being an excellent shelf-stocker and cash-register-operator at a grocery store wouldn’t have exactly been something to brag about. Yeah! It wasn’t that he wasn’t good at the job, it was that he was _too good_ for it. The job was beneath him. He was meant for bigger and better things, like…

 

…

 

…

 

“Can I have those three shots now?” he practically shouted down the bar to where the bartender was handing out a couple of beers. She shot him a look, but a moment later she was pulling down the Patrón Silver and grabbing some fresh limes.

 

The original three shots were just starting to take effect as she filled the first of the new shot glasses — a warm tingling creeping up around his edges, and despite himself he felt the corners of his mouth twitching up in a grin.

 

“Not interested,” the bartender muttered as she flicked the bottle back upright and let the last drop of clear liquid drip into the final shot glass. She was gone again by the time Dan realized that she’d thought his sudden gormless grin was a come on.

 

“Yeah, well me neither,” he said to no one before picking up one of the glasses and raising it to his lips. It was a little slower going this time, either because he was losing coordination or because of the slight queasy feeling the tequila had left in his stomach. Or maybe it was because the nature of time itself had begun to alter. Yes, he was sure that was it: time was disintegrating before his very eyes, breaking apart into discrete fragments that bore no relation to one another:

 

His hand gripping the shot glass

 

The taste of salt on his tongue

 

Tequila burning down his throat

 

Glass clinking against the wooden bar

 

His eyes blinking slowly closed

 

A lime wedge rocking back and forth between two shot glasses—

 

“Sorry, kid, but I’m cutting you off. Call someone to come pick you up.”

 

He blinked up into the watery face of the bartender. He looked down again, confused to see no tequila or limes but just empty bar in front of him. When had he finished his drinks?

 

“Who should I call?”

 

It seemed like a reasonable enough question to ask, but the woman on the other side of the bar was looking at him like he had just asked her if her refrigerator was running and told her to go catch it.

 

“Oka-ay,” he said and shoved off from the bar and stood. Or tried to stand. More like, stumbled over both of his own feet and all four feet of the bar stool before at last casting himself on the mercy of the sturdy bar. “Right,” he said when he no longer felt in imminent danger of toppling over.

 

“Phone,” he announced, shoving both hands in both pockets and digging around until at last he managed to fish up his prize. “There we are!”

 

He made quite a show of unlocking it and scrolling diligently through his contacts, occasionally stroking his chin to emphasize the fact that he was making a careful and well-reasoned decision about whom to call to escort him home. He hadn’t yet noticed that the bartender had gotten bored and gone off to take someone else’s order. It was really too bad that she had. She missed a stellar performance as Dan dramatically cried, “Aha! Jack!” and raised a finger above the screen to almost-believably mime dialing the imaginary Jack.

 

“Jack! Thank you! Yes, I’ll be waiting outside. Good-bye,” Dan said into the phone. He had quite cleverly remembered that he only needed to fake half of the conversation but had unfortunately forgotten that he ought to fake the half that included asking his friend to pick him up.

 

“Jack’s coming,” he called over his shoulder — once again, to no one — before weaving his way through the forest of tables and chairs and out into the chilly night.

 

The journey from the bar back to his flat was epic and fraught with danger, and by the time he arrived safe at his own front door, he remembered absolutely none of it.

 

It was a good thing, he thought to himself, that his door was open already because he had zero idea whether or not he even had his keys with him, and even if he did, his hands had ceased to be capable of any movement other than ineffectual pawing at least twenty minutes ago. Yes, it was very convenient for Dan that his front door already stood helpfully ajar, and he could just slip inside and sway across the tilting living room and toward the welcome arms of his bed — Except, no, wait, that wasn’t the door to his bedroom. That was a closet. Okay. Into the welcome arms of his — no, that was the kitchen. Shit. Okay. Into the welcome arms of— Well, that was just the front door again, still open for some reason. Fuck it. The sofa would do.

 

It was only about a minute later that Phil appeared at the front door of his flat, arms full of a heap of Tesco bags. It was a good thing, he thought to himself, that he’d decided to leave the door open while he went down to the car for the last load because he wasn’t about to put all those bags down in the hallway just so he could unlock the door and then pick them all up again.

 

He’d put away all the groceries, wiped down his kitchen counters, and started a load in the dishwasher before he discovered that he was not alone in his flat. In fact, he almost didn’t notice the strange new addition to his living room decor at all, as he’d just about decided to lie in bed on his laptop for the rest of the evening before turning in early. It was a Thursday, after all, and he had work in the morning.

 

But then he remembered that he had an episode of the _Great British Bake Off_ in his DVR that he hadn’t watched yet, so he wandered into the living room, flipped on the lights and then screamed at the top of his lungs. There was a body lying on his sofa.

 

Disturbed by his cries of distress, the body suddenly sprang to life, its upper portion sitting bolt upright, and its eyes popping open to search the room for the source of the noise.

 

“What the fuck is going o— Who the FUCK ARE YOU?” the body said, the eyebrows on its face squishing together and its eyes appearing to be doing their best to bring him into focus.

 

“What?” Phil squeaked. His shoulders were hunched up somewhere around his ears, and his hands were raised in a position of terror, one on either side of his face.

 

“Who the fuck are you?” the body repeated, “And what the fuck are you doing in my flat?”

 

“Excuse me,” Phil replied, dropping his hands, “but this is my flat.”

 

“Don’t be daft. I’ve lived here for three months now, y’think I don’t know my own fucking flat. This is my flat, 2B—“

 

“2C,” Phil murmured.

 

“—and I live here, and why the hell are you in my flat?”

 

It had struck Phil that the body, uh, rather, the person lying on his sofa was slurring his words in a way strongly indicative of the influence of alcohol. It also seemed quite obvious that this person was neither the victim of a violent crime nor the perpetrator of one but, instead, his neighbor.

 

“I’m not in your flat. You’re in mine, but you’re just too drunk to tell,” Phil said, crossing his arms over his chest and raising an eyebrow.

 

“ ‘m not,” his unexpected guest muttered, frowning in a way that strongly reminded Phil of a cross four-year-old.

 

“Fine. You aren’t drunk. You accidentally wandered into the wrong flat completely sober.”

 

“Your _mum_ wandered into the wrong flat completely sober,” the small, angry child on Phil’s couch rejoined and then grinned in enjoyment of his own wit. “And I didn’t say I was sober. I said I’m not too drunk to tell. Look, that’s—“ He shoved a finger toward the TV and paused for a few seconds too long “—my TV. And that’s my…wall,” his finger had swung over toward a bare section of wall, “and if you look in the bathroom you’ll find my stupid demon toilet that keeps leaking, so you’ll probably find a puddle on the floor too, look, basically this is my flat, and I wish you wouldn’t keep staring at me like that because I need to lie down.” He followed this up by collapsing back into a recumbent position on the sofa and flinging both arms over his eyes.

 

At this point, Phil realized that he had a choice: 

  1. He could continue to argue with a, hopefully temporarily, irrational person and probably continue to get nowhere or, 
  2. He could stop fighting and just accept that he now had a guest for the night.



 

Phil sighed.

 

“My name is Phil. What’s yours?”

 

“Nnnnannn,” moaned the body on his sofa from beneath its arms.

 

“Come again?”

 

The body lifted one arm a bit and croaked, slightly more intelligibly, “Ndan.”

 

“Dan?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So, Dan, erm, can I get you a blanket or a pillow or something? Maybe a glass of water?”

 

Dan, as he was apparently called, made some sort of mumbled reply.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Phil muttered as he headed over to his linen closet. He was already annoyed enough at having to postpone finding out what had happened on _Bake Off_. All he wanted was to quieten down his unwanted guest for long enough for both of them to get some sleep. Though now that he thought about it, drunk as this guy seemed to be, he’d better keep an eye on him for a while and make sure he wasn’t going to need an ambulance. Phil suppressed a groan.

 

When he returned a moment later with an armful of pillow and blanket, he discovered that Dan had drifted off and was lightly snoring. He’d fallen asleep on his back, so Phil wedged the pillow under his head and then bent down to roll him over onto his side. Unfortunately, the sudden movement woke him up.

 

“What the fuck?” Dan yelled, his eyes opening and scanning the room around him. “Oh, it’s you. Whazzyername? Fred?”

 

“Phil,” Phil said. “As in Philip.”

 

“Flip?”

 

“ _Phil,_ ” he corrected, dropping the blanket over the other man’s legs and starting to spread it out.

 

“I think Flip suits you better,” Dan observed, and Phil glanced over at him. He was attempting to give Phil an up-and-down with his eyes, but it looked like he was having trouble focusing. “Like your hair does that flippy thing, so you’re called Flip or Flippy or Flipper—“ Apparently Dan found himself so amusing that he had to stop talking and take a break for a silent, open-mouthed laugh.

 

Phil frowned. He’d just started wearing his hair differently at the start of the week. After years of what one ex had dubbed his “emo fringe,” he’d decided it was finally time for a change. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good change after all.

 

“Pretty cheap taking shots at a stranger’s hair,” Phil said as he twitched the blanket up over Dan’s torso. He was starting to think he might hate this guy.

 

“No no non onononn nonono nooooo,” Dan said, clumsily propping himself on one elbow and lolling his head to the side to get a better look at Phil. “I like your hair. Your hair is beautiful. They should put your hair in like…a hair museum. Shit. I love your hair, man.”

 

“Oh,” Phil said, feeling heat creeping up into his cheeks. “Thanks.”

 

He took a step back and regarded the man lying on his sofa. He was still leaning on one elbow and staring up at Phil with an earnest gaze.

 

“I’m just really crap at things,” Dan went on, perhaps having missed Phil’s muted expression of gratitude. “Like compliments. I try to compliment a cute guy on his cute hair and just end up offending him—“

 

“It’s, uh, really okay, Dan—“ Phil tried to interrupt him before this conversation could get any more uncomfortable, but Dan just plowed right ahead.

 

“And I’m REALLY crap at my job. I mean, fuck, my boss just fired me, so I must have been absolute shit at it. And I haven’t been on a date in, like, six months, and I don’t even fucking know what I’m doing with my life. I mean, how am I even going to pay my rent now? Fuck…”

 

Phil sighed and, since it appeared his guest wouldn’t be falling asleep again any time soon, sat down on the carpet beside the sofa and pulled his knees up to his chin.

 

“It’s not that bad,” he said, hoping that the words were true. “You’ll find another job. What do you do? I mean, as a job?”

 

This question had the unexpected result of causing Dan to collapse onto the sofa and fling both arms over his eyes once more. He let out a long, low groan.

 

Phil waited a moment to see if he was going to give any further answer. Apparently not.

 

“Um, well, I’m sure you’ll still find something,” he said lamely. At least since Dan couldn’t see him at the moment he didn’t have to fake an encouraging smile.

 

“My parents were fucking right,” Dan said suddenly, sounding a little clearer than he had a few minutes ago. “I should’ve just gone to university. But, like, I have no idea what I would study or what career I could do.” He paused, and Phil opened his mouth to respond, but then Dan continued. “I guess I still should’ve gone and gotten some bullshit degree so that I could get some bullshit office job that would at least pay the rent.”

 

Phil closed his mouth. He had been going to make some comment about how Dan should follow his dreams or pursue his passions or something, but then again he did kind of have a point about paying the rent. Phil chewed on his lower lip, trying to think of something comforting to say. Maybe he didn’t need to say anything. Dan’s sudden decision to spill all his deepest insecurities notwithstanding, he was still a total stranger.

 

Dan dragged his arms away from his eyes right then, though, and that’s when Phil noticed that his eyes had gone all red and puffy and there were shiny, wet tracks running down both of his cheeks. It clicked in his mind then that Dan must be really young. Not that Phil was ancient himself. He was only a few years into his twenties, but Dan had said he’d only been in his flat three months, and looking at his face, Phil thought that he couldn’t be any older than twenty…and he was probably younger, maybe just barely out of school.

 

“Isn’t there anything you _want_ to do?” Phil asked at last. “I mean, like a dream career or…I don’t know. A hobby or something?”

 

Dan sniffled a little and reached up one hand to scrub at his cheeks. He mumbled something that Phil couldn’t hear.

 

“What?”

 

“I said it’s embarrassing,” Dan said, his hand over his mouth, muffling the words so that Phil could still only just make them out.

 

Phil had to suppress the urge to snort his amusement. Here Dan was, drunk and crying on a stranger’s sofa with said stranger’s old, faded Pokémon blanket draped over him, but what embarrassed him was having to admit his dream career. Okay.

 

“So, there is something, at least?” Phil prodded. “That you want to do, I mean?”

 

Dan nodded, the back of his head rubbing against Phil’s pillow as his eyes stared up at the ceiling.

 

“So why can’t you do that, whatever it is?” Phil asked, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his hands to make it easier to study the other. “I mean, yeah it sucks that you got fired, but…you could see it as an opportunity, too. You know, my mum always told me, ‘Every dark cloud has its silver lining,’ and I know it’s kind of a cliche, but I think it’s really true. Maybe you weren’t good at your old job because you weren’t meant to be.”

 

Dan tore his eyes away from the ceiling at last, head lolling to the side so that he could frown at Phil.

 

“Are you always so impossibly optimistic, or are you just saying that to shut me up?” he demanded.

 

“No, I really mean it,” Phil said, breaking into a grin, and then added, “You seem to be sobering up.”

 

“Yeah,” Dan muttered, wincing a bit and shutting his eyes. “Isn’t that just wonderful?”

 

Phil jumped up and turned toward the kitchen.

 

“I’ll get you some water.”

 

He couldn’t see that, behind him, one of Dan’s eyes had popped open and then the other, and he was carefully observing Phil’s backside as it disappeared around the corner of the sofa. Phil also didn’t see the pursed lips and small nod of approval his new acquaintance gave him once Phil was out of sight.

 

When he came back, Dan’s eyes were closed again, and thinking he’d fallen back to sleep, Phil set the water down on the carpet near Dan and turned to go. Finally, he could escape to his bedroom and his laptop—

 

“Thanks, Flippy,” he heard a voice call from behind him, and he froze in his tracks.

 

He turned to find his visitor lifting the glass of water to his lips. Within seconds, he had chugged the entire contents down and lowered the glass. With a sigh, Phil walked over and held out a hand.

 

“You’ll want at least three glasses before you go to sleep,” he explained, so Dan handed him the glass, and he went to fill it up again.

 

When Dan had finished the full three glasses, he flopped back against the pillow again and stared up at Phil with a queasy expression.

 

“My stomach feels all sloshy,” he complained, his lower lip hanging out in a pout. Phil’s heart gave a little flutter as, entirely without his permission, his brain started pointing out to him just how adorable the expression was. Uh oh.

 

“You know what,” Phil said, shoving his thoughts to the side, “I’m gonna grab the bin from the bathroom and leave it here, and if you need to, you know—“

 

“Yeah, thanks,” Dan nodded, one hand reaching down to gingerly rub his belly.

 

It turned out Phil hadn’t emptied the rubbish from the bathroom for at least a week now, so he quickly pulled out the old bag, tied it up and tossed it to the side before slipping a new bag into the bin. By the time he’d made it back out into the living room, Dan had drifted off to sleep, lying on his side this time so that Phil didn’t have to worry about turning him. So Phil tiptoed over, set the bin down on the carpet next to the sofa, and then tiptoed back to the door into his room.

 

“Good night,” he murmured before turning off the light and closing his bedroom door.

 

 

**

 

Many hours later, Dan woke to a dim room and a slight ache in his temple. For the first few seconds after waking, he had a vague impression that he was lying on the sofa in his living room. But then small snippets of last night started playing back in his memory, and he sat up, gaze darting about the room.

 

Shit. This was definitely, 100% _not_ his own living room, though it did bear a striking resemblance to it. And it wasn’t just the similar layout of the two flats. There was a TV in the same corner, with a book shelf next to it full of many of the same DVDs and games that Dan owned, a Wii and an X-box 360 and a PlayStation 4, just like Dan had…

 

He looked down to find that he had a Pokémon blanket pulled up over his chest and that sitting on top of the blanket was a handwritten note:

 

_Good morning! Wasn’t sure if you had your keys with you or not, so I left a bowl and some cereal on the kitchen table for you. Milk’s in the fridge. Please put the dishes in the dishwasher when you’re done. I left the spare key for you, too. Please lock up when you go back to your place. I’ll get the key from you this evening. - Phil_

 

When Dan had set the note back down again, he took another look around the room. The blinds were drawn across the French doors, blocking out the morning sunlight. Next to the sofa were a small plastic bin, a glass of water, and a bottle of ibuprofen. His eyes turned to the blanket tucked in around him again. There was a knot at the back of his throat and tears stinging his eyes, but he ignored them and focused on trying to swallow some of the pain pills instead.

 

 

 

 

It turned out Dan’s keys had been in his pocket all along. He figured it was best not to take anything more from Phil than he already had, so he put away the bowl and the cereal in his cabinets, placed the used glass in the dishwasher, and returned the medicine and the bin to the bathroom. The note he folded carefully and slipped into his pocket.

 

 

**

 

Phil returned from work shortly before 7:00 that evening. He’d been hoping to cut out a little early, since it was Friday and things were usually a little slower, but he’d ended up being assigned a huge, new project in the morning that was due the next week, and there’d been nothing for it but to stay until his regular time to try to get as much of it finished as possible.

 

When he had dragged himself up the stairs to the second floor and slid his key into the lock and found his flat quiet and empty, he had to admit to feeling a small measure of disappointment. He’d managed to forget about last night’s strange visitor at several points throughout the day, busy as he’d been. Nevertheless, every time things had slowed down even a little, thoughts of Dan had popped into his head almost at once — Had he seen Phil’s note? Did he remember to put the dishes in the dishwasher? Was he lounging on Phil’s sofa right now, plunging the depths of his DVR library, or had he escaped to his own home the moment he’d awakened? Did he know that his soft snores in the morning were the cutest thing ever invented?

 

But now Phil was here, and there was no Dan in sight. The dishes and the cereal had been put away, and the only sign that he’d ever been there was the Pokémon blanket folded neatly at one end of the sofa with Phil’s pillow resting atop it.

 

On the bright side, it was Friday evening, and Phil had a new episode of _Bake Off_ waiting for him.

 

Phil was halfway through the episode, with a freshly-delivered box of pizza sitting open on the coffee table in front of him, when there came a knock at his door. He paused the show, a little annoyed at being diverted from watching it yet again, and went to see who it was.

 

When he pulled the door open, there stood Dan, and Phil’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He was wearing an all-too-flattering white button-down shirt and black trousers and a rueful grin. Standing up was a good look for him, Phil noted.

 

“Hey,” he said.

 

“Hey,” Phil replied. “Guess you made it home all right?”

 

“Yep,” the other said, then dug down into one pocket and pulled something out. “Here’s your key. You didn’t come by for it, so I figured…” He shrugged and held the key out to Phil.

 

“Oh, right. Thanks,” Phil said, taking it and slipping it into his own pocket.

 

“No, I’m the one who should be thanking you,” Dan returned, shoving his hands down into his pockets and hunching his shoulders up a bit. “I was really, um, out of it last night, and you would’ve had every right to treat me like the major douchebag I was being—“

 

“You weren’t that bad,” Phil put in.

 

Dan snorted.

 

“If you say so. Either way… Thanks.” His eyes dropped down to his feet for a second before rising to meet Phil’s, and Phil felt that fluttering in his chest again. Oh dear.

 

“You’re welcome,” he replied.

 

Dan’s eyes dropped again, and he took a slight step back.

 

_Invite him in! Invite him in!_ something in Phil’s brain was yelling at him.

 

“Um—“ Phil began, but then Dan cut him off, gaze still fixed on the wooden floor of the corridor outside Phil’s flat.

 

“Iwannabeanactor,” he mumbled under his breath. It took Phil’s brain a couple of seconds to decipher his words.

 

“Oh,” Phil said when he’d finally cracked the code. “That’s actually really cool. Why would you be embarrassed about that?”

 

Dan’s shoulders hunched up higher in a small shrug.

 

“People seem to think it’s kind of…unrealistic.”

 

“Oh,” Phil said.

 

_Invite him in!!!!!!_

 

“Ahem,” Phil cleared his throat. “I, um, I think—“

 

“I went to an audition today,” Dan said, his voice a bit stronger, and at last he looked up at Phil again. “I probably won’t get a callback. I was kind of shit, but… Yeah, I’m going to another one next Monday, so…” His tongue came out from between his lips and swiped across them in a nervous gesture, “Yeah, thank you.”

 

Phil swallowed hard, finding that he was completely incapable of looking away from Dan’s eyes now that he’d made eye contact. They stared at each other for several seconds, before Phil finally found his voice again.

 

“You wanna come in?”

 

Dan’s shoulders lowered just a smidge, and the corners of his lips rose in a small smile.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I would,” he said, so Phil stepped aside and welcomed him in, and this time he couldn’t be more excited about his unexpected guest.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr as a prompt fill for petalsofivory


End file.
